We really want to focus this blog on the ‘little’ guy and talk about small businesses that grow smart. But sometimes we can’t resist when for instance one of the big guys leaves a great opportunity to grow on the table for too long. So here we go…
Image courtesy ninjapoodles on flickr
Let’s face it, Starbucks pastry sucks big time. I don’t know how they handle it in your town but here in Edmonton they recently changed to getting it delivered into the stores frozen. While it was pretty bad for freshness and taste before, now you often get pieces that are not properly thawed or still wet from the thawing process – not cool. It definitely made me stop having any.
By contrast in Germany chain store type bakeries make a killing by selling freshly baked pastry, roles and bread in even their small retail outlets. How? The system is a simple as it gets. Their headquarter sends ready to bake (I believe frozen) dough pieces to their retail outlets where every hour or two the staff puts a batch into the in-store baking oven. The result is pastry and baking goods that are always fresh out of the oven, usually still warm and smelling so compelling that it’s hard to walk by without picking one up.
Now can you imagine standing in line in the morning at your favorite Starbucks store with not just a whiff of freshly ground coffee in your nose but also smelling those freshly baked cinnamon buns, pretzels and croissants.
Starbucks succeeded in brining Italian coffee beverages to North America on a large scale. They might as well go the other mile and bring the French croissants and German pretzel culture to their starving customers. I am convinced their numbers would be up big time. The downsides like increased need for storage and baking equipment and extra training (believe me, the bakeries retail employees in Germany are by no means smarter than Strabucks employees) are negligible compared to the extra revenues, profit (pastry is a high margin business) and last but not least increased customer satisfaction.
I posted the idea on the My Strabucks Idea Site. Vote for it if you like the idea and I guess we’ll see what they’ll do with it. I just hope they don’t do it any time soon, since this would heavily compromise my ambitions to lose weight.
My biggest gripe is that most of the white flour, sugar coated pastries aren’t actually food. All I can eat at Starbucks are things that have no nutritional value. I am a regular morning visitor to Starbucks all over the city and they would earn an extra $5 every time I came in if they tried to sell me anything that had protein and whole grain.
Paul, I agree although I have a sweet tooth in the morning there is definitely shiploads to sell in the actual food department.
Another angle on this is to look at Starbucks competitors. For instance the small family run coffee shop next door to a Starbucks. If they have great pastry and food and good coffee I’d skip Starbucks every time. Sadly in most cases thy just don’t get the coffee right. It’s too bitter, or there is no foam or too much milk etc. You would think that it’s much easier to get the coffee right then having great pastry but reality shows that small shops don’t put enough emphasis on training their ‘kids’ to crank out good coffee on a consistent basis.
Speaking of which. I gotta go – morning appointment with Lady Starbucks
I agree, the last thing I need early in the morning or any other time of day for that matter is a crust old pastry or a still cold scone. There baking has gone down considerably, especially in the past 6 months or so. I’ve noticed too that going to buy a beverage in the morning isn’t as appealing when I have to go somewhere else for my breakfast.
Starbucks isn’t the only culprit here. There are WAY too many places that don’t bake their sellables fresh in-store, instead having them shipped in from some corporate headquarters. Heck, by the time they get off the truck, they’re stale. That’s exactly why smaller-scale coffee shops and corner bakeries are the way to go.